"Best of (YOUR Community)" Revisited - Updated August 23, 2010

"The Best of the Palouse" is an online enterprise just now getting started and attempting to gain traction in our local marketplace. I know nothing about the fellow who's launching it, other than what I might infer from poking around the site, which as a template seems robust and well thought out. Whether the effort sizzles or fizzles will depend entirely on his ability to market the site effectively, and as a 37-year veteran in the advertising and marketing arena I can tell you this is easier said than done.

I understand that this individual has entered into some sort of partnership with the local newspaper, which is a good choice, but not the best choice. He first should have explored working with the local radio stations (or our esteemed competitors across the border), based solely on the pervasiveness and intrusiveness of radio, as opposed to the inherently passive nature of print. In my opinion, working in partnership with the radio stations would give this new site a better chance of making a big splash and sustaining it.

A year ago, I blogged about why radio stations should pick up the ball and spearhead a "Best of _____" promotion in their communities. The article was later picked up by Radio World. As I explained in that article, the idea has been around a long time and, in my experience, has most often been the province of a print medium. Up in Spokane, the hugely successful regional alternative newspaper, The Pacific Northwest INLANDER, just completed their annual readers' poll. You can bet they'll be picking up new advertising dollars and enjoying a great deal of free publicity themselves as a consequence.

I share this with you now in the hope that, if such an opportunity exists in your market and you are inclined to jump on it, you're able to seize the moment before a competitor does.

If you do, please come back and share your story.

UPDATE - AUGUST 2010

Since this was posted in late March, radio station reps had the opportunity to meet with Mr. BOTP. At first, he expressed an interest in partnering with the stations, though subsequent events made it appear that this meeting simply provided him with ammunition to go back to the newspaper and negotiate a more favorable deal with them.

In the intervening months, BOTP contests have included an ugliest BBQ grill, cutest pet, most attractive yard, biggest local university sports fan, etc. These have given the newspaper the opportunity to bring in new/incremental advertising dollars, while presumably Mr. BOTP gets paid to do some work for them.

From my perspective, the sublime irony in this teapot tempest is that our friends at the newspaper began using (surprise!) their traded radio airtime to promote these BOTP contests!

Lessons learned: 1) Know with whom you're dealing. 2) Get it in writing. 3) Be prepared for surprises. 4) Keep your options open.

Life goes on.

The Real Reason Advertisers Are Abandoning Newspaper?

Business columnist and author Geoffrey James returned from a recent Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) confab with a stinging indictment of the newspaper advertising industry.

According to James, the reason newspapers across the country are folding faster than a bad poker hand is not the national economy, but "...that advertisers have finally figured out that newspapers, in collusion with clueless marketers and unscrupulous ad execs, have been fleecing them for decades."

The writer asked a room full of newspaper writers how many of them actually read the ads that appear in their papers.

Fewer than five percent said they did.

This made me wonder, what if a similar question were asked of radio broadcasters? How much higher would our percentage be? (You do listen to the ads on your station, don't you?)

After all, radio advertising is intrusive. When the radio is turned on, the listener can't help but hear the ads. (As someone once said, God's gift to Radio is that He created human beings without earlids.)

Whereas newspaper advertising tends to be passive: ...if the reader happens to open that day's paper to the right section...and if she happens to turn to the right page...and if she happens to notice your ad...she might actually read it.

Or she might not.

James' real problem with newspaper advertising is its lack of measurability and/or accountability. Is it effective? Do you know for sure? How do you know?

The problem with newspaper advertising is that, in most cases, you have NO idea whether anyone is reading an ad, or whether that ad is driving buying behavior. And because nothing is being measured, newspapers and ad agencies have been able to artificially inflate the price of their space ads. Massively.

One way newspapers do this is to simply lie about circulation. For example, it’s not uncommon for a newspaper to claim that each distributed copy is read by 3 or 4 people. But that’s total BS. Many copies of most print publications don’t get cracked even once. And the ones that do, I’ll bet that only a fraction of the content ever actually wins the reader’s eye.

As for the ads themselves, only a tiny fraction of the circulation reads them, and the number of people who take action as result is probably in the single digits. (I’m talking the actual number here, not the percentage.)

Newspapers also cook the books is by setting the value of advertising based upon what other newspapers are asking. As if that made any difference. But it worked, in the past at least, because marketers (many of whom don’t want to be measured anyway) never asked the obvious question: how much revenue will this ad generate?

James is bullish on online advertising because click-throughs can be tracked and ad performance measured with greater accuracy. In this, he echoes Ken Dardis of Audiographics - a former terrestrial radio guy, now SVP of Spacial Audio Solutions, an authority on Internet radio, and an outspoken critic of "business-as-usual" where Radio is concerned. For Dardis, the Internet holds the key to Radio's future, which makes him either a gadfly or an augur - or both, depending on whose ox is being gored at the moment.

Ken Dardis is passionate about Radio, but critical of the status quo. His company recently gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of software and hosting to displaced terrestrial broadcasters willing to start their own Internet radio stations.

In other words, he's walking his talk.

The take-away from all of this, for those of us who make our living as radio advertising professionals, is our responsibility to exert every effort to create advertising that is as effective (and measurable) as we can make it.

We do this by investing as much time and energy as needed to understand our advertisers' objectives, their customers' needs/desires/motivation/buying behavior, and the realities of the marketplace that may affect how they interact. Only then can we begin to write and produce the advertising messages that have what it takes to move people and products.

I remain optimistic about Radio's future. Terrestrial stations and online stations both have a place in the new media landscape. They may differ in their delivery, degrees of accountability, and demographics, but they will still provide valuable information, entertainment, and advertising to their audiences.

Read Geoffrey James' full article here.

Following the Wall Street Journal's Example

As I type these words, three dozen major newspapers have filed for bankruptcy protection.

Barely four months into 2009 and already several venerable newspapers have gone out of business or moved exclusively to a web-based format.

To drive home Old Smudgy's predicament, a recent Pew Research piece revealed that less than half (43%) of all Americans believe that the loss of their daily paper would have significant repercussions on their communities. Fewer than one-third would personally miss their newspaper greatly if it ceased publication.

Most Americans would simply shrug off the demise of their local newspaper.

But even as much of the newspaper industry is faced with precipitous declines in circulation and advertising revenue, one newspaper has actually been experiencing growth.

If you guessed The Wall St. Journal, advance to Go and collect $200.

According to WSJ Managing Editor Robert Thomson, quoted in parent News Corporation's The Australian , "One of the reasons our core circulations are rising so strongly is because papers around America are diminishing. And whether it's in San Francisco or Los Angeles or Detroit, it creates a tremendous opportunity for us to gain readers who are increasingly internationally aware and also aware of their need to be well informed about the world."

It's worth noting the WSJ's aggressive marketing mindset. They're mindful of the supreme importance of content and are leveraging their leadership and expertise in this area across their various platforms, creating a powerful global brand.

As with other marketers that recognize and seize the opportunities that inhere during a recessionary period, to gain market share at the expense of weaker competitors, the WSJ is exploiting their advantage and moving full speed ahead.

If they can do it, so can you! Assess your competitive strengths, focus your marketing accordingly, muster your troops and take that next hill!

What's stopping you?